Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde

  'Well?' demanded Jambe.

  I shook my head sadly.

  'I'm afraid not. Winning has never been of any interest to the Neanderthals. They played only as a favour to me.'

  Aubrey sighed.

  'We'd like to delay the next penalty until it stops raining,' announced Twizzit, who had appeared holding a newspaper over his head. He was on legal marshland with this request and he knew it. The umpire asked the Whackers whether they wanted to delay but O'Fathens stared at me and said that he didn't. So the next person on the list took their turn at the fifty-yard line — me.

  I wiped the rain from my eyes and tried even to see the peg. The rain was coming down so heavily that the cascading droplets created a watery haze a few inches above the turf. Still, I had the second shot - O'Fathens might miss too.

  The Whackers' captain concentrated for a moment, swung and connected well. The ball went sailing high towards the peg and seemed set to hit it fairly and squarely. But with a loud 'plop' it landed short. There was an expectant rumble from the crowd.

  The word was relayed up the field — O'Fathens had landed four feet from the peg. I had to get closer than that to win the Superhoop.

  'Good luck,' said Aubrey, giving my arm a squeeze.

  I walked up to the fifty-yard line, the now muddy ground oozing around my boots. I removed my shoulder pads and cast them aside, made a few practice swings, wiped my eyes and stared at the multicoloured peg, which somehow seemed to have retreated another twenty yards. I squared up in front of the ball and shifted my weight to maintain the right poise. The crowd fell silent. They didn't know how much was riding on this, but I did. I didn't dare miss. I looked at the ball, stared towards the peg, looked at the ball again, clasped the handle of my mallet and raised it high in the air, then swung hard into the ball, yelling out as the wood connected and the ball went sailing off in a gentle arc. I thought about Kaine and Goliath, about Landen and Friday and the consequences if I missed. The fate of all life on this beautiful planet, decided on the swing of a croquet mallet. I watched as my ball plopped into the soggy ground and the groundsman dashed ahead to compare distances. I turned away and walked back through the rain towards Landen. I had done my best and the game was over. I didn't hear the announcement, only a roar from the crowd. But whose crowd? A flashbulb went off and I felt dizzy as the sounds became muted and everything appeared to slow down. Not in the way that my father could engineer, but a post-adrenalin moment when everything seems odd, and other. I searched the seating for Landen and Friday but my attention was distracted by a large figure dressed in a duster coat and hat who had vaulted over the barrier and was running towards me. He drew something from his pocket as he ran, his feet throwing up great splashes of muddy water on to his trousers. I stared at him as he came closer and noticed that his eyes were yellow and beneath his hat were what appeared to be ... horns. I didn't see any more; there was a bright white flash, a deafening roar, and all the rest was silence.

  40

  Second First Person

  YACHT CHOICE OF FAMED LITERARY DETECTIVE A MYSTERY

  The shooting of Thursday Next last Saturday leaves the question of her favourite yacht unanswered, our Swindon correspondent writes. 'From the look of her I would expect a thirty-two-foot ketch, spinnaker-rigged and with a Floon automatic pilot.' Other yachting commentators disagree and think she would have gone for something larger, such as a sloop or a yawl, although it is possible she may only have wanted a boat for coastal day work or a long weekend, in which case she may have gone for a compact twenty-footer. We asked her husband to comment on her taste in sailing but he declined to give an answer.

  Article in Yachting Monthly, July 1988

  I was watching her, right up to the moment she was shot. She looked confused and tired as she walked back from the penalty, and the crowd roared when I shouted to get her attention, so she didn't hear me. It was then that I saw a man vault across the barrier and run up to her. I thought it was a nutty fan or something and the shot sounded more like a firecracker. There was a puff of blue smoke and she looked incredulous for a moment and then she just crumpled and collapsed on the turf. As simple as that. Before I knew what I was doing I had handed Friday to Joffy and jumped over the barrier, moving as fast as I could. I was the first to reach Thursday, who was lying perfectly still on the muddy ground, her eyes open, a neat red hole two inches above her right eye.

  Someone yelled: 'Medic!' It was me.

  I switched to automatic. For the moment the idea that someone had shot my wife was expunged from my mind; I was simply dealing with a casualty - and heavens knows I'd done that often enough. I pulled out my handkerchief and pressed it on the wound.

  I said: 'Thursday, can you hear me?'

  She didn't answer. Her eyes were unblinking as the rain struck her and I placed my hand above her head to shield her. A medic appeared at my side, sloshing down into the muddy ground in his haste to help. He said:

  'What's happened?'

  I said: 'He shot her.'

  I reached gingerly around the back of her head and breathed a small sigh of relief when I couldn't find an exit wound.

  A second medic — a woman this time —joined the first and told me to step aside. But I moved only far enough for her to work. I kept hold of Thursday's hand.

  The first medic said: 'We've got a pulse,' then added: 'where's the blasted ambulance?'

  I stayed with her all the way to the hospital and let go of her hand only when they took her into theatre.

  A friendly casualty nurse at St Septyk's said: 'Here you go,' as she gave me a blanket. I sat on a hard EHS chair and stared at the wall clock and the public information posters. I thought about Thursday, trying to figure out how much time we had spent together. Not long for two and a half years, really.

  A boy next to me with his head stuck in a saucepan said: 'Wot you in here for, mister?'

  I leaned closer, spoke into the hollow handle so he could hear me and said: 'I'm okay but someone shot my wife.'

  The little boy with his head stuck in a saucepan said: 'Bummer,' and I replied: 'Yes, bummer.'

  I sat and looked at the posters again for a long time until someone said:

  'Landen?'

  I looked up. It was Mrs Next. She had been crying. I think I had, too.

  She said: 'How is she?'

  And I said: 'I don't know.'

  She sat down next to me.

  'I brought you some Battenberg.'

  I said: 'I'm not really that hungry.'

  'I know. But I just don't know what else to do.'

  We both stared at the clock and the posters in silence for some minutes. After a while I said: 'Where's Friday?'

  Mrs Next patted my arm.

  'With Joffy and Miles.'

  'Ah,' I said, 'good.'

  Thursday came out of surgery three hours later. The doctor, who had a haggard look but stared me in the eye, which I liked, told me that things weren't terrific but she was stable and a fighter and I wasn't to give up hope. I went to have a look at her with Mrs Next. There was a large bandage around her head and the monitors did that beep thing they do in movies. Mrs Next sniffed and said: 'I've lost one son already. I don't want to lose another. Well, a daughter, I mean, but you know what I mean — a child.'

  I said: 'I know what you mean.'

  I didn't, having never lost a son, but it seemed the right thing to say.

  We sat with her for two hours while the light failed outside and the fluorescents flickered on. When we had been there another two hours Mrs Next said:

  'I'm going to go now but I'll be back in the morning. You should try and get some sleep.'

  I said: 'I know. I'm just going to stay here for another five minutes.'

  I stayed there for another hour. A kindly nurse brought me a cup of tea and I ate some Battenberg. I got home at eleven. Joffy was waiting for me. He told me that he had put Friday to bed and asked me how his sister was.

  I said: 'It's not looking very good,
Joff.'

  He patted me on the shoulder, gave me a hug and told me that he and everyone at the GSD had joined the Idolatry Friends of St Zvlkx and the Sisters of Eternal Punctuality to pray for her, which was good of him, and them.

  I sat on the sofa for a long time until there was a gentle knock at the kitchen door. I opened it to find a small group of people. A man who introduced himself as Thursday's 'Cousin Eddie' but whispered that actually his name was Hamlet said to me:

  'Is this a bad time? We heard about Thursday and wanted to tell you how sorry we were.'

  I tried to be cheery. I really wanted them to sod off but instead I said: 'Thank you. I don't mind at all. Friends of Thursday are friends of mine. Tea and Battenberg?'

  'If it's not too much trouble.'

  He had three others with him. The first was a short man who looked exactly like a Victorian big-game hunter. He wore a pith helmet and safari suit and had a large bushy white moustache. He gave me his hand to shake and said:

  'Commander Bradshaw, don'tcha know. Damn fine lady, your wife. Appreciate a girl who knows how to carry herself in a scrap. Did she tell you about the time she and I hunted Morlock in Trollope?'

  'No.'

  'Shame. I'll tell you all about it one day. This is the memsahib, Mrs Bradshaw.'

  Melanie was large and hairy and looked like a gorilla. In fact, she was a gorilla, but had impeccable manners and curtsied as I shook her large coal-black hand which had the thumb in an odd place so was difficult to shake properly. Her deep-set eyes were wet with tears and she said: 'Oh, Landen! Can I call you Landen? Thursday used to talk about you all the time when you were eradicated. We all loved her a great deal - I mean, we still do. How is she? How is Friday? You must feel awful!'

  I said: 'She's not really very well,' which was the truth.

  The fourth member of the party was a tall man dressed in black robes. He had a very large bald head and high arched eyebrows. He put out a finely manicured hand and said: 'My name's Zhark but you can call me Horace. I used to work with Thursday. You have my condolences. If it will help I would happily slaughter a few thousand Thraals as a tribute to the gods.'

  I didn't know what a Thraal was but told him that it really wasn't necessary. He said: 'It's really no trouble. I've just conquered their planet and I'm really not sure what I should do with them.'

  I told him that this really, really wasn't necessary and added that I didn't think Thursday would have liked it, then cursed myself for using the past tense. I put on the kettle and said:

  'Battenberg?'

  Hamlet and Zhark answered together. They were obviously quite keen on my mother-in-law's speciality. I smiled for the first time in eight hours and twenty-three minutes and said: 'There's plenty for everyone. Mrs Next keeps on sending it over and the dodos won't touch it. You can take away a cake each.'

  I made the tea, Mrs Bradshaw poured it and there was an uncomfortable silence. Zhark asked whether I knew where Handley Paige lived, but the big-game hunter gave him a stern look and he was quiet.

  They all talked to me about Thursday and what she had done in the fictional BookWorld. The stories were all highly unbelievable but I didn't think to question any of them — I was just glad of the company, and happy to hear about what she had been doing over the past two years. Mrs Bradshaw gave me a rundown of what Friday had been up to as well; and even offered to corne and look after him whenever I wanted. Zhark was more interested in talking about Handley, but still had time to tell me a wholly unbelievable story about how he and Thursday had dealt with a Martian who had escaped from The War of the Worlds and turned up in The Wind in the Willows.

  'It's a "W" thing,' he explained, 'in the titles, I mean. Wind-War, Worlds-Willows, they are so similar that—

  Bradshaw nudged him to be quiet.

  They left two hours later, slightly full of drink and very full of Battenberg. I noticed that the tall one in the black cloak had rifled though my address book before he left and when I looked he had left it open at Handley's address. I returned to the living room and sat on the sofa until sleep overcame me.

  I was woken by Pickwick wanting to be let out, and Alan wanting to be let in. The smaller dodo had some paint spilled on him, smelt of perfume, had a blue ribbon tied around his left foot and was holding a mackerel in his beak. I have no idea to this day what he'd been getting up to. I went upstairs, checked that Friday was sleeping in his cot, then had a long shower and a shave.

  41

  Death Becomes Her

  SUPERHOOP ASSAILANT 'VANISHES'

  The mysterious assassin who shot the Mallets' team manager has not yet been found, despite a vigorous SpecOps search. 'Its still early days in the investigation,' said a police spokesman, 'but from clothes left at the crime scene we are interested in interviewing a Mr Norman Johnson, who we understand has been staying at the Finis Hotel for the past week.' Asked to comment further on the rumoured link between the attack on Miss Next and a grand piano incident last Friday, the same police spokesman confirmed that the attacks were connected, but wouldn't be pressed on details, Miss Next is still in St Septyks Hospital where her condition is reported as 'critical.'

  Article in the Swindon Daily Eyestrain, 24 July 1988

  'Table seventeen?'

  'Sorry?'

  'Table seventeen. You are table seventeen, I take it?'

  I looked up at the waitress in a confused manner. A second ago I had been taking a penalty during a Superhoop — and now I was in a cafeteria somewhere. She was a kindly woman with a friendly manner. I looked at the table marker. I was table seventeen.

  'Yes?'

  'You're to go ... northside.'

  I must have looked confused because she repeated it and then gave me directions: along the concourse, past the Coriolanus Will-Speak machine, up the stairs and across the pedestrian walkway.

  I thanked her and got up. I was still dressed in my croquet gear

  but without mallet or helmet, and I touched my head gently where I could feel a small hole. I stopped for a moment and looked around. I had been here before, and recently. I was in a motorway services. The same one that I had visited with Spike. But where was Spike? And why couldn't I remember how I got here?

  'Well, looky what we have here!' came a voice from behind me. It was Chesney, this time wearing some sort of neck brace but with a bruise on the side of his head where I had kicked him. Next to him was one of his henchmen, who was minus an arm.

  'Chesney,' I muttered, looking around for a weapon, 'still in the soul reclamation business?'

  'And how!'

  'Touch me and I'll knock your block off

  'Ooooh!' said Chesney. 'Don't flatter yourself, girlie - you've just been called to go northside, haven't you?'

  'So?'

  'Well, there's only one reason you go over there,' replied Chesney's sidekick with an unkindly laugh.

  'You mean—?'

  'Right,' said Chesney with a grin, 'you're dead.'

  'Dead?'

  'Dead. Join the club, sweetheart.'

  'How can I be dead?'

  'Remember the assassin at the Superhoop?'

  I touched the hole in my head again.

  'I was shot.'

  'In the head. Get out of that one, Miss Next!'

  'Landen must be devastated,' I murmured, 'and I have to take Friday for a health check-up on Tuesday.'

  'Ain't none of your concern no longer!' sneered Chesney's sidekick, and they walked off, laughing loudly.

  I turned to the steps of the pedestrian footbridge that led towards the northside and looked around. Oddly, I didn't feel any great fear about being dead - I just wished I'd had the chance to say goodbye to the boys. I took the first step on the staircase when I heard a screeching of tyres and a loud crash. A car had just pulled up outside the services, jumped the kerb and collided with a rubbish bin. A large man had leaped out and was running through the doors, looking up and down in desperation until he saw me. It was Spike.

  'Thursday�
��!' he gasped. 'Thank heavens I got to you before you went across!'

  'You're alive?'

  'Of course. It took me two days driving up and down the M4 to get here. Looks like I was just in time.'

  'In time? In time for what?'

  'I'm taking you home.'

  He gave me his car keys.

  'That's the ignition but the engine starter is a push button in the middle of the dash.'

  'Middle of the dash, okay. What about you?'

  'I've got some unfinished business with Chesney so I'll see you on the other side.'